Shire Network News #108

Shire Network News #108 has been released. This may be the last episode of SNN, at least for a while. This is from the website:

I’m afraid we have some bad news. For reasons which are detailed in the podcast, this is probably the final Shire Network News, certainly at least in it’s current format.

We seem to have gotten ourselves smack-dab in the middle of the Blog Civil War that’s going on, and we managed to get ourselves ripped apart by the gravitational forces. Yes, yes, we TRIED reversing the polarity through the deflector array, didn’t work.

In part, the reason why “Brian of London” and “Tom Paine” in Australia have come to truce and treaty and the parting of the ways is the subject of this weeks special and probably last feature interview.

It’s with Filip Dewinter, leader of the Valaams Belang, the Flemish nationalist party in Belgium. As many of you already know, there has been a great disturbance in the Blog recently over the counter-Jihad movement cooperating with the VB and other European parties with questionable antecedents, such as the Swedish Democrats.

Shire Network News was offered the chance to put the tough questions to the man himself. And so, like idiots, we did.

And then…well, listen for yourselves.

For myself, “Tom Paine”, now that we seem to be in the Blogosphere equivalent of the week that Fort Sumter was fired upon, I reckon on lighting out for the territories for a spell, I figure I’ll be back when this has all blown over. And I’m sure all of us wish Brian of London great success with his family in their new country.

And perhaps it might be worth remembering that there’s a real enemy out there, and it’s not each other, m’kay?

Click here for the show notes, links, and ways to listen to the show; directly from the web site, by downloading the mp3 file, or by subscribing with your podcatcher of choice.

Below is the text of what my commentary segment would have been. Just think; you won’t have the opportunity to hear me sing “Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport”. Consider yourselves fortunate.

UPDATE: According to the site now, Tom Paine says that SNN isn’t going away, so you might yet hear this in an upcoming episode.

Hi, this is Doug Payton for Shire Network News, asking you to “Consider This!” The last time I did a Global Warming Update, it was for my very first contribution to Shire Network News back in April, so it’s about time for another one.The Nobel Committee says that, by raising awareness of global warming, the Prophet Al Gore (Peace Prize be unto Him) might have been instrumental in possibly stopping potential future conflicts over what may turn out to be scarcer resources. With that paper-thin connection to “peace”, they turned the Nobel Peace Prize into the Nobel “Leftist Accolade” Prize. Well, it may have already been that, if you consider that Gandhi of the Middle East, Yassar Arafat, was a recipient.

In any event, not everyone in the climate biz was thrilled to see the prize go to Al and the United Nations (which, incidentally, is a good name for a rock band…with apologies to Dave Barry). Dr. William Gray is a pioneer in the science of seasonal hurricane forecasts, and he’s called Gore’s film, “An Inconvenient Truth”, “ridiculous”.

Dr Gray, whose annual forecasts of the number of tropical storms and hurricanes are widely publicised, said a natural cycle of ocean water temperatures – related to the amount of salt in ocean water – was responsible for the global warming that he acknowledges has taken place.

However, he said, that same cycle meant a period of cooling would begin soon and last for several years.

“We’ll look back on all of this in 10 or 15 years and realise how foolish it was,” Dr Gray said.

OK, if we do realize how foolish it was, does that mean Al loses his prize? Nah, probably not. He’ll just say that all his “consciousness raising” fixed everything. Plus all the particulates from the exhaust of his private jets reflecting the sun. But if Dr. Gray is right, shouldn’t he get the Peace Prize for raising the consciousness about the natural cycles of the planet, thus keeping a whole bunch of global warming alarmists from fighting over who’s fault it was that they were wrong?

The next item pits one lefty special interest group against a few others. Greenpeace is suggesting to Australians that, in order to hold down methane emissions from cows, that Aussies eat more…kangaroo! Well, the vegetarians are already upset about cows, and PETA is sure to hate this, what with the “cutesy” factor of the roos. Think of all the brokenhearted children when a politically correct Christopher Robin starts eyeing Kanga, with a lean and hungry look in his eye. So now, let’s all sing the new anthem of Greenpeace.

Finally, here’s the latest action by DARE. No, not the anti-drug group, the not-so-well-known “Democrats Against Renewable Energy”. Over the years, Ted Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Walter Cronkite, among other liberal luminaries, have been campaigning against wind power. That’s right, they’re so concerned about the fishing and boating industries (what one might call “Big Fish”) that they’ve actively worked against wind farms 5 miles off the coast in…oh, yeah, Nantucket Sound. Well, there’s your explanation. Wind power is good, unless it’s within the sound of my Sound. And again, it’s one set of lefties against another. Such entertainment value!

All we need to do now is get Al Gore up there to Cape Cod and see how “peaceful” things get. Then we could just sit back, throw another roo on the barbie, and watch the sparks fly, which I suppose would just contribute to more global warming.